


Insideyous

by tco



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 10.14 coda, Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Disturbing Themes, Episode: s10e14 The Executioner's Song, First Blade, Horror, M/M, Mark of Cain, listen i know it's been thirty years but I will finish it when my memory returns from war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:42:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3456056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tco/pseuds/tco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his belly, Cas hangs the moon. Dean howls to it, howls for his red, red bride. The blade tears them apart until it ties them - the river ends at the source.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Of course he doesn’t spend the next four days sleeping and of course his little brother’s got a handful of good reasons to cry his way through this, which he does. Dean sees this in the swollen redness of Sam’s eyes when they fleetingly meet Dean and his own blood-shot stare. Like two sides of a coin, the reason for this comes down to one fucking thing, motivations differing as far as only differences go.

Dean wants his camel-jawed hand back. His rightful bride, his ribs, his blood. It’s all his, it’s all him. And he doesn’t understand how he could ever let that go. He misses it. Misses dearly. He spends the time which does not flow needing and thinking how to get it back with the same intensity he used to sit and think of ways to get rid of the Mark not that long ago. How foolish it was to be hopeful. How repugnant it feels now. From the inside of his room, echoes a bitter, venomous laugh. How even dared he.

There is a difference between want and need. He needed it to gank Abaddon. He’s had and enjoyed it when he was dead and there was nothing left to need, he’s had it ripped away from him like skin (and it hasn’t healed yet). He’s spent, what, years without it trying to cope, to re-adapt, to live, all to no avail. He wouldn’t get pure (because there was never anything clean in him to begin with, no matter how much rust and blood and dirt, he’ll scratch off, there still will be filth underneath, he reminds himself). He tried to atone, but the peace of other people is never his.

He’s killed the father of his bride and now it’s solely, entirely his. He doesn’t need it. He wants it. He accepts this truth, finally. It makes all the difference and all the order in the world. He wants it, he wants it, he wants it. He gave it away because he wants it. He doesn’t know how long will that last, this final act of self-salvation of his.

Cas has it.

Cas isn’t here. Cas is almost never here.

That’s why he has it. That’s why he isn’t here. Or maybe it isn’t.

Either way, because Dean still hates himself, he doesn’t call him. At this point whether the hatred comes from wanting to call or not doing it, is open for discussion. One Dean doesn’t want to have with himself. What he wants is his blade.

His, somewhere in Castiel’s hand, maybe still, maybe in the past. But if there’s someone who knows the now, it’s him and Dean won’t call him although he’s had the damn phone in hand eleven times just today and yes, he counts.

He counts the futile shakes of his hand and all the things it misses.

 

At 3.27, AM, he texts:

_is it safe_

 

but he doesn’t even know if he means safe from him, safe from Cas, the general safe, or how you ask about a person that can get hurt. It feels like his body wrote the text for him and omitted any judgment on the conscious parts of the brain (or whatever he’s got left of those, he muses). Intuition votes that what he had in mind was, in fact, _don’t let anyone hurt it_.

3.29

_how are you Dean?_

 

Now this is something that does not hold his interest. Dean knows the question is way heavier than the words suggest. Even normally he wouldn’t feel inclined to open that wound, but now? Now he doesn’t care. In all honesty, he only feels in the way that he wants to know if. it’s. safe. He tosses his phone aside. Tries to sleep, senses tired and frustrated with the ripe stench of the room, of himself. Wants to dream of better things.

He dreams of Hell. But if it’s future or past, he can’t discern. Reeks like home. So it’s okay.


	2. Chapter 2

And in Hell, it doesn’t matter how is he. He’s good. That aside, he’s the best. Beneath his fingers blood runs smoothly like sand. Those who whine, who scream, who die – they don’t ask stupid things like his well being. They’re just scared and scared is how they die.

Now Cas, he asks those things even though he knows that awake he’s falling into pieces, missing and drying and sick; that he wants, that he needs, that he’s stepped away from all the light that ever was for him, if any. For this alone, for the audacity to demand an answer like that, he wants Cas in between his fingers, a wreath of death on his throat, a rainbow of bruises. He wants to eat the very last moment of air that escapes his holy lungs.

The people in Hell, they don’t compare. He slices and dices them anyway. Can’t leave his hands idle when they need, when they mourn. He breaks bones with artistry, plays them like instruments. He always liked good music. He waits for something. Not all of his racks are taken. The empty spaces are so bright. They keep getting his attention akin to a magpie mesmerized by shiny trash. His bride will fill the voids when he gets her.

See, this is the bed for his brother. He’ll kiss his temple softly and he’ll tell him goodnight, he’ll call him by his little name – for the last time and for the first time of plenty when the old teeth will sink under his skin, draw blood, collect tears.

And that is for his almost lover (such a shame he doesn’t have wings to rip away anymore, what a loss to a loving and capable hand). The conjugal rack where his bride will roar in jealousy – he almost chose him instead of her; he almost put her away, the love of his life, his blade. The ageless jaw is furious, she will make the bird pay for the insult. Dean stares at the rack and he knows he and Cas will mold into one in many, many ways. Dean will touch and have his everything. Every last drop of blood. He doesn’t tell the blade, but he thinks that’s how he’s gonna make Cas never leave him anymore. He thinks he’s gonna rest like that: only hidden in Cas’s meaty, honey-skinned thighs it is possible to sleep in Hell. On his rosy lips. In his lifeless eyes. Inside. With the blade tying them like a vow, binding them. To the hilt, everything buried to the hilt. No words. They never had many. Never had enough. Perhaps it’s just better that way. Dean just doesn’t know how to apologize. He feels like he should. He’ll sew his own mouth closed just in case. He’ll sew Cas’s, stitch by stitch. So maybe Cas won’t whine, won’t scream, won’t really die (and leave).

Like he did. And like he did in Dean’s dream, Dean’s Hell. He’s not here. Dean dreams alone with two empty racks. Cas has the love of his life with him. An incomplete Hell is a parody of itself. It deteriorates quickly. It takes Dean along into decomposition. He doesn’t mind all that much. He kills while he can. When he’ll dissolve – he’ll wake up and that, in fact, he minds a lot. It’s a very tedious world outside. Rackless, bladeless, hopeless. With Sams and Cases that breathe and look at him too much – they do that when he’s up. Their eyes are wrapped up in pity and pity is Dean’s least favorite flavor of life. In Hell, he’s the king and queen, for once he doesn’t question his choices – no one does. He wants to stay below, where his hand doesn’t itch, where he acts instead of thinking, where the blackness is so thick he doesn’t see his failure even if he tries. Where a shadow of Alastair’s hand pets his back and he purrs. Where something is proud of him.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean doesn’t avoid Sam exactly. There’s no point to it – most is known in the unsaid anyway, he thinks. But he’d lie if he said he’s keen on meeting him around the bunker. He’s not. It hurts the last damn unrotten things in him. A lot. Like now. All this space in the kitchen, all this empty fucking space separating them in the kitchen, and they still collide. Back in the day (many years ago), or in the leftovers of “the day”, in its empty broken shards (fewer years ago, ever since Sam walked out that door and chose Ruby) that got stitched together in ill ways, it would be brotherly brushing by. Now for Dean it’s a collision and it hurts like a motherfucker. He bets Sam probably isn’t that hungry. Or at least that he doesn’t need that particular orange from the shelf right behind Dean. The touch of Sam’s arm on his flannel burns and he stops himself from spitting self-loathing apologies of _I’m sorry I’m nothing I’m too filthy Sammy don’t_. Knee-jerk reaction of his heart, is all. The rest of him doesn’t even feel anything at all – it just wants the blade and to some extent perceives his brother as an agent of not letting him have it. This causes a foam of anger to gather in the endless sea of his stomach, but it’s still and unruffled. Idle. The only thing in movement is the throb of pain in the innards of his not entirely dead chest, started by the sight of the sad, broken and hopeless thing that Sam’s face is because of him.

It doesn’t stop him from putting a layer of butter on his bread, though.

If there’s anything he should say, it dies stuck in his mouth, even _hi_.

Sam’s braver than him.

“Hey,” he says, aiming for normal (but Dean can and does feel the lie scratching over his needy, wanting bones). He clears his throat, from the obvious lie, maybe. “Dean?” he goes (asks?) smiling shyly, like a child. That’s two words and that’s a fuckload. But what can Dean say – Sam’s always been braver than him, he supposes. He makes a great example. So Dean tries to follow.

“Hey”. Replicates the gesture, a smile with no teeth. He doesn’t say anything more than that – he’d have to lie whatever he’d say and Sam knows his lies like he knows his face, the nightly patterns of his breath when he sleeps, like he knows the bible. There’s no use and no dignity in lying to Sam now. Last time he tried, he saw his back shaking slightly and he knew he was a lost cause and for a second it was such a burden if he hadn’t leaned on Cas he thought he’d fall (or crumble or just wither away).

Sam takes his orange.

“Good to see you out,” unsure, but relieved. Sincere. Dean aches.

He turns around rapidly, or so he thinks – at least he didn’t noticed making a decision to move. But he has his palm of Sam’s arm now, thumb brushing softly and they stand face to face, both irrationally scared of Dean, yes, Dean included, while Dean reminisces the good old days before he was dead to this world, days where he could still be side by side with his brother. Again, he thinks _I’m proud_. It’s a reflection he can keep taking to the grave – this will never change. But now he’s more hungry than proud and he hates this. Closes his eyes, takes a breath (sees the blade calling beneath his eyelids). Tries to roll back into the present but the need is heavy. He has to resurface, he has to. He’s not alone in here (sadly or hopefully or both: in this). Focus. _Sammy_. _Sam_. Less than three seconds all of this.

“You want some bread, too?” voice nonchalant. “I can make some,” slides down to begging. “A sandwich.” Explanatory.

He thinks he failed the are-you-human test.


	4. Chapter 4

„You can put the orange down,” Dean tells him, shaken. Like it’s very important that Sam does this. “Don’t stare at me like this,” he says and it is necessary to make note that it is Dean who stares or at least stares more, Sam hopes. “I can still handle a sandwich for you. Come on,” he nudges. Sound some kind of stepford-perfect too much verve in this. Somehow sounds like he’s empty inside, a thin crackable shell. It’s terrifying and he wants to run. He looks down for a second and Dean’s red mark taunts him. Dean’s eyes follow the movement and he frowns, disappointed. For a moment Sam expects him to lash out at him with a hammer again and sing-song _should’ve just taken the damned sandwich, Sammy_. But he blinks and he blinks and nothing like that happens. Still, it’s eerie and afterwards the world seems a little bit more godless. Everything speaks godless and lost in Dean’s eyes, even though he tries to hide it. Dean abandons his arm. Shrugs. For a second it all is normal.

“Well then,” Dean concludes and proceeds to smear butter roughly over the slice of bread. Sam watches his brother’s hands half mesmerized, half wary and he knows, just knows it takes Dean too long. He’s a hair away from making a hole in the bread, but Dean is probably too far away from here, from him, to be aware of this. Or to care. After what appears to be forever and a half, Dean absentmindedly takes another slice and repeats his task. He puts the two pieces on a plate, content with the result. He shifts to leave.

“That’s it?” Sam asks suggestively. “That’s not exactly a sandwich.”

His eyes not leaving Dean’s face, he easily reads the sudden rasp in his mind from his eyes, from how wild and afraid they are because he discovered something he shouldn’t have. In this panic Sam reads a quiet, violent _I fucked up_.

“Not exactly sandwich hungry,” Dean replies without missing a beat but the tremor in the corner of his lips tell Sam that Dean knows just as well that he messed up the entire song, every single note, with plain butter, he just screwed it. “So this will have to do.”

“Instead of what?” he knows. But he just wants to find out what Dean will tell him now. Or in two days. Or in a week, if they even make it that long (something in Sam’s guts tells him _no_ and laughs ruthlessly in Dean’s voice). Dean’s silence makes him feel weak and powerless. He watches an answer, probably one syllable, decompose under Dean’s tongue. His gaze is tired. He doesn’t want to play anymore. So he grabs the un-sandwich like it’s salvation on wheels and he bites into it, chewing slowly. Slowly enough for Sam to drop it.

“We’ll get you through this,” he assures instead and finds himself thinking of Cas. How different and selfishly calming it is to be hopeless together. He knows Dean isn’t listening to him anyway, so he lets the idea root into him. Maybe it would be better if Cas were here. Maybe he’s found something, he thinks, except that he knows that Cas didn’t – cause if he did, there already would’ve been three phone calls about this and news Dean probably wouldn’t care about anymore. Dean doesn’t even play appearances right these days and they both know there is one thing on his mind only ever since he fucking touched it again. In all honesty, if it were Sam’s call to make, he’d probably let Cain continue with his spree. Later he’d tell himself at nights that his reasons weren’t all that pathetically selfish; that a Dean tainted like this is a beast worse than the walking plague that intended to cleanse the world.

Dean leaves the kitchen, not gracing Sam’s statement with a word. Walks like a mannequin.

It’s Sam who ends up calling Cas.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean’s heard some voices coming from the hall. So he knows it’s Castiel behind whose back the door close softly. Besides, Sam wouldn’t have ventured into his room, not anymore. He’s not that… the correct word would probably be _stupid_. Well, Cas either _is_ or he’s got a plan. Dean’s very disinclined to find out what that is. He’s too busy wanting and shaking. Lacking the object of his quite blatant desire is taking its toll on him faster than it did last time around and really – Dean doesn’t have the willpower to waste on wondering about things that don’t take him closer to his goal.

But it’s Cas. Cas, who knows where the damn things is. Has it, maybe (oh, shitful God, make him have it here so he won’t be begging for nothing). Something about him feels different. Different enough Dean wants to turn around to see and understand what it is. He thinks he even did, as if on command, considering how he can now distinguish Cas’s outlines in the dark, and just a second ago he only saw the white dullness of his pillow. But here is where his initiative ends. The lock in the door turns, has them trapped. So a plan it apparently is, then. Dean’s hand senses the blade before his brain does. He grips the sheets till his knuckles go white. His nostrils flare, his pupils dilate. Now he really can’t let Cas leave. He’s gotta do something to keep him here (thank fuck the door’s locked; thank fuck Cas can’t fly). He wants to get up and swallow the key, just in case, but something’s got him pinned to the bed, timid and waiting. Trembling with apprehension.

Why did he come here with it?

Did he decide it’s better if Dean has it?

 _Or_ ,

or did **the blade** decide it’s better if Dean has it?

Too many questions that require too many words. Dean doesn’t have the luxury of those. Can’t ask without giving himself away. If there still is something Cas doesn’t know. Considering how miserable Dean’s state is, there probably isn’t. Which only makes Dean’s _why_ grow stronger, more insistent.

“Hi,” he croaks instead, a less dangerous syllable for now.

“You haven’t answered my texts,” Cas says calmly.

“Been busy,” Dean answers, making it up as he goes. “Saw Sam. He had an orange,” he explains.

“I’ve spoken to Sam. That was six days ago. The message I’ve sent you, it’s been almost two weeks,” Cas sighs.

“Can’t exactly blame me for failing to conceptualize time,” Dean groans, defeated. “I mean, look at me. You’ve got your answer.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it,” he muses knowingly. As if he understood.

There is a chance that he _does_ and the meaning behind it terrifies Dean shitless.

“What made you come here?” he asks, thinking: _did you do something irredeemably stupid?_

“Sam,” Cas tells him and the wavering in his voice informs Dean that it’s not entirely true.

“That’s bullshit.”

“Dean,” Cas goes with the authoritative tone at its finest, but it has no effect on Dean.

“Why are you here, Cas? Don’t you have a rabid little stray to look after?”

“Not my only stray,” he deadpans. Particularly not funny, Dean thinks. “I’m here to help you.”

“Yeah? And how are you gonna do that?”

“You once asked me to throw you into the sun,” he says and it makes no sense to Dean. “I will.”

The air shifts. He feels something heavy, thick, all-enveloping come out from its hiding. He understands. It’s the same burning, metallic tang of need that keeps tormenting him. It’s on Cas. In his voice, its velvety, low notes. In Cas. Oh, God. He did do something stupid.

“What have you done?” he sighs. “Damn it, Cas." He feels like an echo. And also like a liar. His body is thrilled with the hell-sent turn of events.

“I did what I had to do,” Cas answers solemnly.

It’s always that, isn’t it.

 


	6. Chapter 6

In the relatively not distant past the idea of having sex with Cas would make Dean’s entire being shudder. Would make him excited and afraid. Would make him wonder, most of all. How it is to kiss him, taste him, feel every single pore of Cas’s skin beneath his hand. Would put a body into the always terrifyingly fascinating question of how it’s like to fuck a man – for a while now Cas ghosted in those fantasies, star number one. But now that’s it’s about to happen: in this state, in these circumstances, in this context – surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, Dean’s mind supplies), Dean feels nothing. He’s being goddamn pragmatic about this (so is Cas, removing his clothes with eerie casualness while Dean still ponders). What he thinks is about that if anyone, Cas included, thinks Dean stashes lube in a drawer near the bed, or anywhere for that matter, they’re wrong. But the panic is shredded away from him like layers of old skin, old life. It all seems so natural and businesslike – the very fact that it has to happen. The eternal _what if_ is missing as if it was never there. Means to an end – he concludes yet another time and bitterly supposes that his and Cas’s idea of a proper end to this are two different things. This is a matter they certainly need to discuss, but not now – not to ruin the mood. Or, to be honest: the lack of it. He undresses rather inelegantly, all tired, frustrated movements, as if he were doing chores, not preparing for pleasure.

“There,” he announces when he’s ready and that’s pretty much it, a moment later Cas’s hands are all over him, diligent, professional, knowing what they’re doing all too well. Like it’s the hundredth time they do it. It’s not and it’s quite sad. Dean dared to expect something else in his dreams. Real, not alien and foreign passion (this is artificial). Tenderness. Kisses. But they don’t waste time on niceties. With every touch the need pooling low inside of him rises and entangles him. Not him – his body. He, on the other hand, is detached and Cas seems to have very thin strings connecting him to the experience as well.

That all changes when Dean touches Cas’s stomach.

He rises into flames like bonfire, and so does Cas if his gasp followed by a needy groan is any indicator.  His hands won’t leave that soft spot of flesh now, he promises to himself. Dean’s fingers curl, they want to scratch into the insides of Cas’s belly where a wreath of intestines and a veil of grace keep his lovely blade so safe in this perfect place. It’s marvelous, he thinks, the hideous contamination of two things he love and he wants it to stay like that forever. Scraping at Cas’s skin lightly, he moans, voice swollen with rabid need.

“Jesus, Cas, ( _I’m sorry about this, buddy,_ his heart cries, the leftover good part of it at least)” he whines and scratches Cas like a small, but very determined animal.

“There, there, Dean,” Cas comforts him, his voice on fire; his hands heavy stones, pinning Dean down, unwrapping him like a sacred gift. “I knew that would comfort you,” he says.

“It doesn’t comfort me,” Dean snaps because this is the last fucking thing it does, actually. It just makes need and misery form one ugly bile of hopelessness. It brings his body peace, rubs his want and body in all the right places – a blink of the so wanted contact while still keeping his mind at bay because there is soft, holy and powerful flesh separating him from touching it, not letting take over him. But knowing what it will do to Cas – it almost hurts like a motherfucker. _Almost_ is what makes him hate himself even more. Nothing inside screams _take it out, don’t do this_. Everything should. “This is as far as I’ll let you”, Cas warns.

 _Nonono_ , Dean thinks. No.


	7. Chapter 7

Hands on Dean’s hips, this is the closest Castiel finds himself to wanting. In a bitter way, the blade sheathed inside of him makes him almost human. His eyes, his palms, they aren’t celestial intent anymore. The thing, it connects him to the body he wears, it makes him want Dean in the ways he craved his skin, his smile, his mouth on his lonely human nights. But this is stronger, much more primal. It wants to claim Dean as its property, tear him apart and possess him, make him into whining, needing nothing, make him solely its. Castiel touches Dean with fear, he begs his grace to withhold it. He navigates himself between Dean’s legs with surprising ease. He knows this body well. Somehow, the blade knows it better.

He doesn’t know which one of them Dean is welcoming with so much fire as he pushes Castiel closer and traps with his strong calves and hungry hands, but for their own good, he hopes it’s him. He doesn’t have a proof. He never knew if Dean wanted him like he wanted all these women, all the other bodies. He’s desperate to find out. Even more desperate to make Dean need him in a whole new and fully carnal way.

So maybe there was something selfish in the act of taking the blade inside. Maybe it made him do it. He kept staring at it and it kept calling, tempting, offering ideas until he gave in, until he found an excuse.

But when Dean tells him (touching, crying), “It has a mind of its own, why did you listen,” Castiel denies.

“It’s just me,” he promises.

Dean shakes his head. “Not anymore,” he says as he forces himself down on his cock with no preamble hot, tight and hissing in pain (and Castiel is afraid of how much _everything_ he wants to do to him right now). Having Castiel buried inside of him to the hilt, he leans in towards his face and he whispers, “You’re already dead.”

Then Dean begins to move. The blade sings with fire. Castiel’s hips find the melody, the rhythm, the core at which they want to claw. And Dean, he howls, burying fingernails into Cas’s stomach, searching restlessly for the hidden treasure. His breath is hot, Castiel feels it echo over his face, as Dean foretells and promises, like the otherworldly drugged prophet he is, “You’re dead and I killed you.” He rolls his hips and takes him like a wave of an ocean as he repeats, “With this I’ve killed you.” To prove his point, he retreats and slams back down, yanking an ungodly groan out of Castiel’s throat. “Cause I should’ve kicked you out, begging for you to spit it the fuck out,” he explains, voice swollen with pain but burning with need. “But I sure as fuck won’t,” he snarls, fucking himself onto Castiel’s dick with shameless abandon. He’s never seen him looking so debauched, not even in his dreams and he so, so deeply regrets he hasn’t made him come undone like this before (so many wasted years, his mind supplies, disappointed).

And he’s beautiful like that. So beautiful something in Castiel wants to tear him apart, eat him until he breaks his teeth on Dean’s bones. But the need in Dean’s body, the inhuman craving that makes him moan and melt, it has Castiel maddeningly jealous. Dean isn’t fucking _him_. He doesn’t know how to compete with the power of the blade, with the blood and barbwire bond Dean shares with it. Livid and driven by the malicious thing (he knows, but denies for the second time), he punches Dean in the face to what Dean bites down his broken lip and moans as if it was the highest pleasure ever given to him. Scratches harder, draws blood. Castiel hits him again.

“Dean,” he demands. “Focus on me.” No reaction. Another blow. “Focus on me.”

“There is no you,” he sighs.

Third time, Castiel denies.


	8. Chapter 8

The dust falls back into its old places, maybe finds some new ones, the scorching desire abandons all air, all joints. And everything goes awkward. There aren’t many things to say post factum, not about the most immediate past. Dean doesn’t tell Cas he’s so relieved he’s almost alive. Doesn’t inform that an angry spirit is for now banished out of him, doesn’t say fucking (two entities, to be honest) felt like his bones were being scrubbed dry then draped over with flesh, blood and skin once again in some kind of phoenix-cliché act of burn and rebirth. Judging from the noises he was making, from his heavy, labored breathes, from the calm on his flushed face – Cas can probably tell with no words.

His mind hasn’t been this clear in weeks. That’s why he’s now got it in him to outdo himself in ruining the post coitus mood because he sees bright as day the scale of the quicksand of shit Cas has dragged them into. He lets anger stir inside him silently until Cas leans down in an attempt to kiss his split lip (like it’s some kind of war trophy). He doesn’t get to do that cause, frankly, now that the sex lens flares stopped confusing him, he’s pissed about Cas striking him like that this thoughtlessly. Pissed, cause he thinks about the first time he beat him up into mutt chow. And about the other time. The very foundation of this idiocy leads to the second reason why Cas doesn’t get to do that and this is something he’s going to talk about right now. He pushes Cas’s head away in an ugly, demeaning gesture. He decides to start with, “Fuck off, you stupid son of a bitch.”

Luckily for him, Cas stays in his shitty lane and doesn’t try a second time. But he squints, clearly not getting what he’s done wrong. Well, Dean’s gonna explain that.

“Why can you never control yourself? This isn’t what I gave you the blade for. You didn’t wanna kill me? Fuck you, fine. But if I knew you were going to condemn all of us to something worse than dying, I would’ve given the damned thing to Crowley. At least he can keep his mind straight!”

“Dean,” Cas begs, “this is the only thing I could have done to help you,” he explains. “Sam and I are running out of time.”

“Yeah,” Dean huffs. “Now you really are, no way of stopping it.”

“A compromise to your thirst is the only solution we have. When Sam called, I was forced to act quick. I’m the only barrier strong enough to stop you from getting your hand on the blade and this, this form of relief will let you stay sane.”

“No, it won’t. And it’s gonna destroy you from the inside. It already seduced you into taking it near me. Just how it wanted to.”

“What was I supposed to do, then?” Cas thunders, incensed. “Let you slowly descend into madness?”

“So you decided to speed it up instead?”

“That’s not how it works.”

“That’s _exactly_ how it works, Cas,” Dean sighs. “Been there. After each contact I got better only to cuckoo later. This _is_ contact enough.”

“I’m buying us time,” Cas insists. “Sometimes-”

“Love is a battlefield, you heard that in a song once, yeah, I remember,” he interrupts tiredly. “You just picked the worst weapon. Literally.”

“So if it’s the dumbest way, we’ll just stop,” Cas shrugs, “and keep looking for something better.”

Dean laughs at him bitterly.

“You really don’t get it, do you? Cas, I’m past that point,” he murmurs, rubbing greedy circles over Cas’s belly. “I’m not gonna stop. Neither are you. Give it time, it’ll call. We’ll fuck like rabbits each time until there’s nothing left of us but sulfur.”

“We’ll find a way.”

“There is one. Shoot me with a gun while it still can kill me.”

“No.”

Dean laughs humorlessly. Nothing else he can do.


	9. Chapter 9

Knowing Cas is a down to business, not a lot of small talk kind of guy is one thing. But as far as Sam’s tastes in information sharing go, he’s been too damn brief upon his entrance, which was mostly all he’s seen of him besides of being very vaguely informed he’s found a temporary at worst and permanent at best solution. Sam’s what is its fell on deaf or uncaring ears. Cas was already on his way to Dean’s bedroom. Urgent, Sam kind of gets it, okay. What he doesn’t get is that Cas reemerged on the next morning, more crestfallen and stern on his way out than on his way in. He catches him on his sleeve while he can.

“Did it work?”

Cas looks like he’s working the question through under thirty five angles.

“Yes,” he answers eventually. And that’s about it.

“And?” Sam prods.

“It’s a process. It’s going to take time for Dean to heal,” he decides to add.

“But what have you done, Cas?”

“I’m sorry, Sam”, he leaves him with that. And leaves, as in: really leaves.

 

He doesn’t even have to check up on Dean. His brother enters the stage maybe two minutes later. A whole brand new giddy, smiling Dean. Plus a bruised lip and a swollen face. Regardless of all conscious thought, Sam greets him with, “What the hell, Dean?!”

Offering a grand bitchface that would rarely grace his features, Dean says, “I fell down some stairs.”

“Did you two have a fight?”

“God, no,” Dean waves his worry off in a dismissive voice. “We just tried some shenanigans to tone the Mark down.”

“And?” he asks, equally dumbfounded and fear-monosyllable stuck like he was with Cas.

“And then I fell down some stairs.”

“Dean,” he tries but already knows he’s not going to get anything out of him today. "Can you at least tell me if you think Cas’s help worked?”

Confronted with this question, Dean laughs so dryly a desert seems moist in comparison, which sends a nauseating shiver down Sam’s spine.

“You just wait,” he says. “Gonna be spectacular.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Sam isn’t sure whether he even wants him to, anyway. Dean might as well be speaking in riddles (or in tongues), considering how hard he’s been to cohabitate with these days. What’s worse Dean now stares at him brokenly and there’s something fucking ominous in his eyes, but Sam can’t put a name on the sort of fear it induces in him. Worst, as if after a flip of a switch, Dean is all smiles again.

“Wanna have a movie night, Sammy?” he suggests.

It’s morning. Which is exactly what he tells Dean.

“Doesn’t matter,” his brother shrugs. “Come on, you get to pick,” he tries to lure. “You get to pick everything now,” he adds after a while, voice too soft in these ( ** _any_** ) circumstances.

He agrees. He doesn’t remember what they watched. What he remembers is that Dean still didn’t eat on that day. Or the next day. Or a week and a half later when Cas showed up again (looking stressed) and stole his brother for a night once more.

 

Cas would show up like this from time to time later on and the secretive disappearing of theirs became a habit. Sam would love to bet on them figuring their shit out, but seeing more and more bruises on Dean, he knows something’s wrong. Afterwards, Dean is always eerily kind to him and insists on spending brotherly quality time, letting Sam do whatever he wants (Sam wants nothing; he just wants to know what’s wrong).  Always stares at him as if he’d lost him one more time. Or one time too many.

“I’m not dying,” Sam finally snaps.

“No,” Dean agrees wistfully, his mind clearly elsewhere.

 

Afterwards he doesn’t let Cas in for weeks.

He shows up at the door once.

“I can’t,” he hears Dean mutter. “It’s Sam.”

Now he thought that he finally had himself sorted out, but he was wrong apparently because once more, in a new context, he doesn’t know _what_ he is.

“Does he know anything?” Cas asks.

No, Sam doesn’t. And that would be the problem.

 

Cas leaves. Sam doesn’t bring it up until he gets two worrying texts and a phone call from Claire. When he mentions it to Dean, he’s ruthlessly cold about it. Meanwhile, he’s gotten detached and a bit aggressive, his previous also worrying warmth simply gone.

“I’m guessing Cas is on his shark week,” he says.

“Angels don’t have shark weeks, Dean.”

“He’s always been special, now hasn’t he?”

“But Claire’s been trying to contact him for days. Don’t you think it’s worth checking?”

“Oh”, Dean pouts, “where is her independence now?”

“Dean, Sam says, disbelieving his ears. “Are you jealous?”

“That’s stupid,” he snarls. “In fact, so are you.”

 

He lets Cas in again. When he does, it’s a clusterfuck loud enough Sam gathers the courage to invade Dean’s room. And oh, God.

He catches a glimpse of Cas banging Dean’s head over a shelf and shouting at him shit he doesn’t catch out, all of this happening while they're fucking against a wall, Dean clinging to Cas with his legs for dear life.

Somehow Dean staring at him is the most wrong of it all. His face looks feral.

Focused solely and entirely on him.

Sam shuts the door. He doesn’t know what to do.

He sure as fuck wants to run.


End file.
